Warmth
by Alialka
Summary: Sometimes, all you want is get a reward for all you've done, catch a break, take a breath... be allowed to forget, to be reminded and just be. /hinted ME3 timeline, no spoilers.


**Author's Note:**

It seems appropriate that my first Mass Effect piece of writing would come in a spur of a moment.

Since I have yet to finish the 3rd game, I'd like to ask any potential reviewers to refrain from spoiling the game for a fellow fan. Thank you in advance.

_**Warmth**_

_**by Alialka**_

* * *

><p>She likes the warmth, she decides.<p>

She likes the way it seems to roll off of him, in long lazy waves and then crash against her chilled skin. It makes her feel content, calm… safe.

And for her, it seems like _ages _have already passed from the last time she felt safe. With always something looming just around the corner, like a deadly shadow in the peripheral of her bright eye; a request, an order, a threat … and sometimes, simply her heart's burning wish. It all brought her into the eye of the storm, again and again and again, where she was never safe.

Where death was an all too familiar cold weight on her shoulder and a foul taste in her mouth.

Sometimes, the woman sighs against the smooth surface of the pillow, she thinks she has a death wish.

Or if someone misplaced a part of her brain - the one responsible for sane behavior and for well developed sense of self-preservation - during her rebuild – _resurrection_, she corrected herself– process.

No one in their right mind would willingly expose themselves to even a small portion of what she had endured.

Ironically enough, it is the silent, snow covered memory of Alchera that's constantly wedged into her memory. Not the fights, not the sting of bullets or their hisses in the air, not the sound of heat sinks falling to concrete, to grass, to tiles… not the screams as flesh and armor scorch in an incineration blast. But the calm, eerie glow of rusted dog-tags and the sigh of the sky where she died. It never ceases to make her throat close and stomach churn.

She really does like the warmth, she thinks, as a very warm, large hand sweeps lazily across criss-cross scars on her stomach. Talons scrape lightly against puckered flesh and she wants to move closer, to nestle herself – so soft and pliant – against plates and hardened skin.

She would too, if not for how bloody _limbless_ she is right now…

How, in every god's name possible, he ever found this little piece of dark heaven was beyond her, but she would be eternally grateful that he did. Even if, considering all odds and the skies burning all over the galaxy, the eternity would be rather… short-lived.

He presses against her, all hard edges and strong lines, and her skin tingles. Heart swells inside of her chest and she thinks it's about to burst and then he pulls her closer, plates scratching and his breath hot against her shoulder.

_Bruised_ shoulder, she adds silently.

The warmth changes into a steady heat, one that wraps around her like lazy licks of a flame, and she wants to stay and burn in the confinement of his arms and shadows.

It's scary.

To want… to need someone this much.

But right now, far away from the world as she knows it, she thinks it's a good kind of scary.

"What's on your mind?" He asks quietly and the words ghost over her skin, like his hands did moments ago.

She forces her hand to move and rest atop his, soft skin to hard talon, and replies in a rough whisper, "I can't move."

There's a soft click, a tickle – mandible flared – and his embrace tightens.

"Good." He says, voice resonating through him an her and a _different_ kind of warmth starts to pool deep inside.

He shifts ever so, his touch scalding and forcing and causing nerves to sizzle, and she thinks, she decides, that maybe she can move _a little bit more_.

The warmth – his, his, _ever his, _she chants within the depth of her mind, because her mouth is way too occupied with the taste of his name and the worlds and stars and burning moons seem to be all gone – is behind her, above her, all around and inside out and her fingers clench clumsily on his talons.

In the shadows of destruction, they burn and she really, _really_ likes the feeling.


End file.
